Summary

In 2017, Indonesia's Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education introduced the Science and Technology Index (SINTA), which uses data from two publication and citation databases, Scopus and Google Scholar, to capture the individual research performance of Indonesian academics and rank them. But last year, scientists showed that some of the highest-ranking academics had inflated their SINTA scores by publishing large numbers of papers in low-quality journals, citing their own work excessively, or forming networks of scientists who cited each other. Some say SINTA should no longer be used to produce rankings, or should even be abandoned. But the government is sticking with the controversial metric; it recently announced the rollout later this year of an improved version of SINTA.

↵*Dyna Rochmyaningsih is a journalist based in Deli Serdang, Indonesia.